A military veteran who said he was asked to leave a Brainerd-area restaurant because he was with his service dog said that the experience was humiliating and that he wants to raise awareness before it happens to someone else.

“It’s been a miserable 10 days,” said Navy veteran Paul Connolly of Brainerd, Minn., of the time since he and his service dog, Cooper, were asked to leave the dining room at Iven’s on the Bay in Brainerd. “It felt awful.”

Sara McCabe, manager at Iven’s, said the incident — on a busy Friday night before the Fourth of July — rose from a miscommunication and the veteran wasn’t refused service.

“I don’t understand how this has escalated the way it has,” McCabe said. “We certainly would never knowingly offend any guest.”

Connolly, 55, joined the Navy in 1976 and served until 1982. He trained as a SEAL and spent his Navy career working in and on nuclear weapons. He said he also spent an extended time with threats to his life after taking part in a Naval Criminal Investigative Service sting to nail a drug dealer.

He suffers from nightmares, panic attacks and depression.

“I wake up in the middle of the night,” Connolly said, “always on the ship.”

It was through the Veterans Administration that he learned of service dogs for veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.

Cooper, a 3-year-old Australian shepherd border collie mix, reminds Connolly to take his medications, wakes him during night terrors and calms him during panic attacks. Nancy Connolly said the PTSD is a barrier to her husband’s ability to interact with others.

“It took a lot for him to go out on a Friday night,” she said. “He never would attempt it without having that dog with.”

On June 27, the couple was meeting friends at Iven’s on the Bay. After initially preparing to seat the Connollys as they waited for six others to join them, the Connollys said staff members came back and asked them if they could prove their dog was a service dog.

The Connollys said they offered to provide an ID with the law covering service dogs but before they could get it out, the staff member left and came back saying they would have to go outside because someone in the restaurant was allergic to dogs. Nancy Connolly said when she objected, saying the service dog was federally protected, an Iven’s manager questioned how they would know it was a real service dog, adding anyone could buy a service dog vest online.

McCabe said a server told her another patron, who said they were allergic to dogs, questioned if the dog was a service dog because he wasn’t marked, and an employee may have then asked the Connollys if they could prove Cooper was a service dog. McCabe said she didn’t witness the exchange, but things escalated quickly and she heard parts of the interaction from the kitchen.

There also was some confusion about whether the Connolly group had a reservation, which they did not.

The Connollys said it was after the interaction about the dog that they were told they could be seated outside and a table was being prepared on the deck. The couple was never asked to leave or remove the dog from the building, McCabe said.

Nancy Connolly said she continued to speak to Iven’s staff after her husband and Cooper left the restaurant. She was joined by one of the friends they were meeting for dinner, Jim Woodruff, chairman of the Minnesota chapter of Tribute to the Troops, a nonprofit that works to recognize service men and women who lost their lives since 2001. The organization raises money for scholarships for the children of those fallen service members.

“I do know those assistance dogs are lifesavers for a lot of veterans with PTSD and emotional stress,” Woodruff said. “This guy served his country, put his life on the line, was a SEAL. … I think we owe these people the courtesy to try and pay them back.”

After talking again with staff but still being denied seating, Nancy Connolly asked for the attention of the customers, saying she wanted everyone to know they were being denied because of her husband’s service dog and they were leaving, but it wasn’t legal or right.

After leaving the restaurant, Nancy Connolly called the sheriff’s department to report the incident. Deputy Scott Friis met with managers Eric Berreman and McCabe.

The sheriff’s incident report stated Berreman and McCabe were under the assumption a certified service dog needed to wear an orange vest. The report stated the managers apologized and said they would speak with the owner and train staff on the law.

McCabe said the short summary on the sheriff’s report doesn’t detail the extended time they talked, the commotion and confusion. McCabe said she’s been in the industry 18 years and has never dealt with a situation like this before.

“It really became a spectacle,” she said. “It got very out of hand very quickly. I do know they were never asked to remove the dog from the building.”

For Woodruff, he hopes Iven’s reaches out to a trade organization in the restaurant industry to help address the issue.

“It has to start somewhere, why not Brainerd,” Woodruff said. “Paul’s not the only guy out there that has an assistance dog. I would hope these people are made aware and reach out to others so incidents like this don’t happen to another veteran.”

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